By Eric on 2006-06-08

Jun 07, 2006

Part 3.

7) How would it have been different if you had launched GR ten years earlier? What about if you had launched it today?

Good question. If I launched it today, we’d be a different publication, I doubt we’d start as a zine, and I suppose we’d lose a lot of money initially, but I think we’d find our stride. I think our editorial style and viewpoints are more open than other publications. If we launched it ten years earlier, not sure! I was too young to even care.

8) Your readership actually has a large proportion of non-Asians, how do you think these readers got into GR? And what do you interpret it to mean for your magazine? When you were starting, did you think that GR would have such a hold on a non-Asian audience?

They got into GR because we’re not an exclusive club. We come from a different background which I think helps the variation in themes and approach to a magazine. National Geographic can be read by anyone, I’d like to think that GR could have that broad appeal. The other traditional Asian American magazines perhaps not. I like to interpret it as we do editorial better. We have better stories that are more interesting. Why would a non Asian American care about “twenty top Asian American women business persons.” “5 best Asian American lawyers” “Cars that an Asian American should buy”. Etc. That’s all shit. When we started, we didn’t think about who would read GR. We wanted to make a good publication.